introduction

13 February 1945: the devastating bombardment of Dresden. Richard Strauss is so affected that he writes one of the most gripping works in his entire oeuvre: Metamorphosen. The purified piece, written for 23 strings, is tragic music that touches us deeply.

W.H. Auden’s poem of the same name inspired Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety. His personal identification with the poem is almost physically perceptible in the gripping music.

programme

Playlist

artists

Stéphane Denève

conductor

Stéphane Denève is the music director of the Brussels Philharmonic. This top French conductor designs his programmes combining 21st century music with the great classics, thereby opening up a dialogue between the repertoire of the past and that of the future.